Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Tuesday April 13, 2010 @09:34AM
from the oh-please-yes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iron-bound determination to keep Adobe Flash out of any iWhatever device is about to blow up in Apple's face. Sources close to Adobe tell me that Adobe will be suing Apple within a few weeks."

The newest release of Flash can apparently generate iPhone compatible applications. Apple rewrote their developer terms that require you to write your iPhone apps to run directly on the platform using a spcified language (i.e. objective C, C, C++ or Javascript). Using a cross-compiler to develop an application is prohibited.

This would have been a big market for flash, Apple have closed it off for no apparent reason other than to spite Adobe.

I my applications are "originally written in" in neurons, which requires the use of intermediate code being expressed in various languages on whiteboards, notebooks, conversations, etc. before any code reaches C or other language. I guess I won't be writing any iPhone apps.

Alternatively, i could interpret the clause in the new agreement to mean that they don't want runtime translation/compilation to avoid sucking battery power when (their) tools are available to correctly compile once against the target.

At any rate, I don't imagine that it will be long before someone distributes the Flash player as a bunch of (obfuscated) C classes or libraries or some such (perhaps as an on-line service) which a developer could then paste into Apple's developer tools, along with a byte-code or other pastable representation of the Flash program which would then be compiled by the allowed Apple tools into a native binary.

Apple makes a nice amount from app sales, which they control. If an independent framework becomes popular, this opens the door to someone else controlling the flow of money. I don't like either position, but I understand them in their twisted minds.

Sometimes laws are complex for useful and legitimate reasons. When the problem domain is a complex beast, the laws governing it are going to be complex. Just like software - complex problems yield complex solutions most of the time. And laws have to deal with things that are far more complicated than software, because software systems are generally deterministic whereas legal systems have to deal with human failings.

For instance, let's take the very simple crime of murder. You'd think it was straightforward - you kill somebody, you go to jail or death row. But it's not, because sometimes killing somebody is justified, sometimes it's an accident, sometimes it's an accident that required the killer to do a whole lot of extraordinarily stupid things, sometimes it's because the person wanted to die, etc. If you make the laws too simple, the judge will be stuck with the sentence for running someone over because your brakes failed (due to poor maintenance) being the same sentence as hiring a hit man to kill someone in their sleep.

In the case of the 1100 page health insurance reform law, it's as big as it is in large part because health care is a hugely difficult problem with both lives and billions of dollars on the line. Yes, there are also a lot of riders, special interest stupidity, loopholes, etc, but you can easily leave 300 pages for that stuff and still have a hugely complex bill.

Personally I'd think that Adobe standing up for itself, and perhaps threatening Apple with some-sort of discontinuing of it's products on Macs may knock some sense into Apple; it'd probably be a good thing for Adobe in the long run.

If Apple obviously doesn't want to play nice with Adobe, why should Adobe keep providing Apple with a main selling feature of Macs? (The supposed fact they're for multimedia work).

Adobe didn't play nice with Apple in the 1990's and about killed it. Instead they sucked up to Microsoft. Turn about is fair play, but there are still good technical reasons why Flash is not good for devices like iPad and iPhone. They are not personal computers. They are devices and Apple is trying to squeeze the most out of them.

The problem isn't so much that the iPhone/iPad shouldn't be running Flash due to performance/battery limitations, it's that Apple changed the rules without telling Adobe. It's as if you worked for 2 years on a shiny sports car only to be told, 3 days before you'd be able to take it on the road, that its category had been banned from using the roads ever again. I don't think Adobe would've been that pissed off had Apple told them BEFORE they started working on their Flash exporter.

I just don't know what Apple is thinking here though because as the GP said, Apple needs Adobe as much if not more than Adobe needs Apple. Adobe's products are a major reason Apple sells well in the first place.

Adobe would bend over backwards to make flash work in the iPhone or iPad to Steve Job's satisfaction. Apple does not want flash on their platform for simple money reasons. If you go and play Farmville or Mafia Wars on Facebook on your iPad Apple does not make any money for that. If you buy We Rule from the app store they do get a cut of that along with the books, music, video etc.. They sell you through the built in store. They have you completely locked down to their app store and they collect revenue on

Apple itself doesn't use hardware acceleration (except on the 9400M chipset, and even then only very recently) for things like H.264.

Flash on Windows doesn't use hardware acceleration either (10.1 will), and the performance is better than the OS X version.

All of the graphics components of OS X are documented and other third party vendors seem to have no problems.

On2 even had a decent flash player built into its own app (used to use it to test flash videos with simple player templates that the software would make for you if you gave it a source video - it was much better than the flash plugin for the browser!)

just like everyone else who wants to build something that displays something on the screen. I'll give you another hint: "nothing aside from blessed quicktime components can actually use video acceleration" is bullshit. Have you even read the documentation?

You have full (and extremely well documented) access to the graphics abilities of OS X as a developer.

The complaints about "acceleration" are almost all related to the lack of hardware decoding of H.264 in OS X, which is limited to the Nvidia 9400M chipset only. Even "blessed" Quicktime doesn't use hardware decoding of H.264 on OS X (unless you have a Mac with a 9400M). Hopefully this will be added soon.

really? how did you get flash working on your Android phone? I have a Moto Droid running v2.1 and there is no flash support. Adobe is working on an Android Flash app or something, but there is no firm release date for it yet.

If Apple obviously doesn't want to play nice with Adobe, why should Adobe keep providing Apple with a main selling feature of Macs? (The supposed fact they're for multimedia work).

The relationship between Adobe and Apple has been somewhat strained. Adobe for the most part made their name with Photoshop on Mac. Over the years they have slowly shifted their main focus to PC products instead and then going porting these products back to Mac. This is most evident with the Cocoa API Framework. Apple first released the APIs with OS X back in 2001. Up until CS5 was released on Monday, Adobe didn't use the API framework and instead relied on the Carbon Framework. That's 9 years to move frameworks. CS5 is also the first to be 64 bit as well. Apple might be a little tired of Adobe dragging its feet on development.

Rather than Adobe dragging their feet, Apple fucked them over when they released developer docs for Carbon 64 and then later cancelled the entire API without any explanation. The Mac Zealot idea that there was some sort of roadmap or plan to transition everyone to Cocoa is simply factually incorrect. Apple just spontaneously did it and without warning their major development shops (even internally).

And I don't see how developers wasting their time with platform churn rather than adding new features and improving the product helps anyone. The platform-purity argument is bunk - the programs really aren't any better for using Cocoa as far as anyone can tell.

So Apple is bad for annoucing a new transitional framework. Waiting six months and realizing that only a couple of companies would ever use it as itwas only designed to last a couple of years anyways?

Carbon was always supposed to be just a transitional framework. Something to help port from OS 9 to OS X. That like msft supporting win 16 frameworks in windows 7. Apple moves faster however during the ppc to intel transition those who used the coccoa frameworks transitioned a lot faster and easier than those who used the ppc designed carbon frameworks.

I would live to see msft mange a major processor shift. It would take 10 years.

Apple made a hard decision to cut support for a legacy framework, with broad impact to many of its developers. This very trait is often lauded in comparisons to Microsoft, where many people would dearly love for terrible legacy frameworks and APIs to be deprecated (or even just 'nuked from orbit'). Moreover, Apple isn't obligated to do any work to make Adobe's life easier.

If you want to continue silly tit-for-tat analyses of such things, Adobe screwed Apple over a decade earlier by refusing to port anything to Cocoa -- sticking with Carbon in the first place. This Roughly Drafted article [roughlydrafted.com] provides more of the historical color.

On an open platform, you are free to kick software vendors you don't like to the curb, in favor of ones you do, and in a granular fashion. On a closed platform, your decision is entirely deprived of granularity. It's a take-it-or-leave-it, all of it, thing.

In practice, the latter gives you much less power as a customer. Yes, you can not buy the closed platform; but that means that you cannot have any of it. Technologically bundled. On an open platform, you can pick and choose. Bundling(whether technological or contractual, and whether or not it meets the legal standards of Sherman) gives the vendor great power over you because, as long as one part of their product is good, they can be more or less assured that you will just have to suck down the bad parts. Open platforms, which are much less subject to bundling, barring particularly nasty contracts, subject individual parts of the system to competitive pressure.

Yes, flash sucks. Don't install it if you have the choice, use flashblock and a whitelist if you just need it in a few places; but never forget that the vendor who can choose for you, even if their taste is impeccable, is more dangerous than the vendor you can choose, even if they suck.

Root for Apple. Apple creates significant markets regardless of their unattractiveness. If they can keep Flash off their crap, then content creators will adapt, because they want those Apple users. How will they adapt? Well, if we're lucky, they'll just stick to standards. And that means the device that you use or develop, will only need to be compatible with standards. And then everyone wins (where everyone includes you), regardless of Apple's closedness.

I don't know who should win in this one. Perhaps I'll wait till the docs are actually filed and can read the actual arguments and get actual law instead of some journalists opinion on what is.

Exactly what grounds would Adobe sue on? If Apple was offering a competing proprietary product to play Flash media, I could (possibly) see an anti-trust case. But they aren't, they're simply not offering the functionality. This isn't really the same thing as Netscape vs. Microsoft.

Come one people, this has *nothing* to do with Flash as a media player - this issue is to do with Apple denying Adobe Flash as a development platform for the iPhone, which is completely different to the age old (well, since 2007 anyhow) issue of a lack of flash in Mobile Safari.

Apple are denying Flash as a development platform, and instead requiring the use of their own development platform.

Can Microsoft do that as well? It's their platform right? Oh, wait, it's Apple so it's fine now.

*Sigh* The rules change when you are a monopoly. MS has a monopoly. But that isn't the where they got into trouble because it's legal have a monopoly. It's illegal to use your monopoly powers to limit and thwart competition. That's where MS got into trouble.

Apple does not have a monopoly on smart phones. They don't even have the biggest marketshare in the US much less the world. RIM has the lead. Therefore monopoly rules do not apply.

When Apple entered the phone market, there were a number of entrenched competitors already in place. Even so, the iPhone has manage to hit what, 25% market share?

When Apple entered the portable music player market, there were a number of weaker competitors. It was the first affordable, viable, and stable digital player available. They now enjoy a 75% market share.

Now that Apple has entered the super-portable PC market, there are virtually no meaningful competitors. They are almost guaranteed a significant m

In my opinion it is impossible for either Apple or MS to be considered a Monopoly. Just having a huge percentage of the market doesn't make you a monopoly. You have to have the backing of a government federal, state, local. So my utility company is a monopoly because I can't shop around. Same with water, sewer, roads, ect. But a company that makes a product can't have a monopoly because there is no barrier to entry into the marketplace except for consumers. So say Apple becomes this tyrannical company and p

Quite simply, any anti-competitive behavior may be grounds for an anti-trust case under section 1 of the Sherman act. It could certainly be construed that allowing a specific application constitutes an agreement between Apple and the applications developers, and that if Apple refuses to allow Flash-based alternatives to that application that it then is a conspiracy that restrains competition, and if that application is for sale then this agreement by definition restrains competitive commerce.

Whether or not Apple has a monopoly is particular sub-market is pretty much irrelevant, because anti-trust laws are never enforced until years after the fact. That is, by the time one could legally prove them to be a monopoly, its too late.

That was his point by way of sarcasm. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the mobile phone market, or even the smartphone market, and as such are not held to the same standards as a convicted monopolist (like Microsoft in the operating system market).

If we're considering the entire software industry, no, Apple doesn't have a "monopoly". But neither does anyone else at the moment. Neither did Microsoft in the 1990s and early 2000s.

If we're talking about the smartphone market, Apple still doesn't have a "monopoly". Likewise, Microsoft didn't and doesn't have a monopoly in the personal computer market.

If we're talking about the iPhone/iPad market, then Apple does indeed have a "monopoly". This scope is equivalent to that of the x86 PC market. It's a specific type of device, made by a relatively small number of manufacturers.

Now, you might say that it's nothing like the Microsoft monopoly of the x86 PC market. In reality, however, they're very similar situations. In fact, Apple's monopoly is much worse than Microsoft's ever was. Microsoft only ever directly controlled the software. Apple, on the other hand, controls the software, the hardware, and the distribution channel.

Even if Microsoft used their position to encourage the use of IE, they never went out of their way to explicitly "ban" Netscape Navigator, or Opera, or any other competing browser from running on Windows. Apple, on the other hand, has imposed very strict limitations on the apps that can run on their devices.

I'm sickened by Microsoft's products and behavior as much as any other reasonable person, but Apple has taken it to a new level that I don't think even Microsoft could ever achieve.

I'm constantly amazed at how many people aren't familiar with the term "Vertical monopoly." It's not commonly enforced, but that's exactly what Apple aspires to, and it's one of the many reasons they should be smacked down.

I think it would also be a reasonable argument that Apple can't use its monopoly in one area to force its way into another monopoly. In this case, the first monopoly would be in mobile browsers, and the other would be in user web experience.

Both of those are reasonable ways to look at the situation, and a court ruling would come down to the facts. In this case, the facts to support the second argument (the one I provide) would be difficult to show; so that will be Adobe'

Do you know what a monopoly is? how can you possibly claim Apple has a monopoly in either one of those markets? most figures I've seen put them in the 15-20% market share for smartphones, and those numbers are probably high.

Did you get to the bottom of my comment where I say that Adobe would have a lot of difficulty showing that Apple is a monopoly? Here, I'll quote myself for you: In this case, the facts to support the second argument (the one I provide) would be difficult to show; so that will be Adobe's burden.

You don't have to have a monopoly to be anti competitive and predatory. Microsoft was both long before they established an actual monopoly. And no the Slashdot crowd generally would not accept that type of behavior from any computer software or hardware company. Except I guess, for some hypocrites, Apple.

...and once they can't help but use their yachts, also in open seas, they will inevitably start falling prey to storms, cyclones, etc.? (commonness of which will be increased greatly due to warming, in which building the fleet of yachts also had its part?)

Specifically the Quick Time team should sue the iPhone and iPod OS team for not putting Quick Time support in the OS. Seriously, why must we all convert our Quick Time movies? Is it really that hard to support their own format on their own device?

Specifically the Quick Time team should sue the iPhone and iPod OS team for not putting Quick Time support in the OS. Seriously, why must we all convert our Quick Time movies? Is it really that hard to support their own format on their own device?

The iPhone OS *does* use QuickTime (the framework) to play movies and music. Hell, an MP4 container (as defined in MPEG4 Part 14) is a subset of the QuickTime MOV format. 3GP (as used on many cellphones) is also a subs

"It was Microsoft's operating system." Oh, right, I forgot, under modern antitrust laws you're allowed to be a total anti-competitive asshole until you become the 800lb gorilla. Part of me is hoping that Adobe wins and takes Apple to the cleaners because I don't buy the hypocrisy here that Apple should be able to get away with behavior that would have launched an online World War 3 if done by Microsoft.

Oh, right, I forgot, under modern antitrust laws you're allowed to be a total anti-competitive asshole until you become the 800lb gorilla.

These "modern" anti-trust laws are a century old, and were instituted because of abuses by 800 lb gorillas like Standard Oil. Microsoft has a monopoly, Apple doesn't; that's the difference, and it's a difference that matters.

These "modern" anti-trust laws are a century old, and were instituted because of abuses by 800 lb gorillas like Standard Oil. Microsoft has a monopoly, Apple doesn't; that's the difference, and it's a difference that matters.

Not a car analogy: You shouldn't punch people on the nose. But it makes a difference whether a three year old girl punches me on the nose (I'll say "Ouch") or Mike Tyson punches me on the nose as hard as he can (I'm likely gone). In one case people tell me "don't be such a wuzz" if I complain, in the other case someone could go to jail for murder.

In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos / (alone or single) + polein / (to sell)) exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.[1][clarification needed] Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods.[2]

This was my first thought. Sue them for WHAT? AFAIK there is no contract that Apple has breached. The only possible claim seems to be an antitrust claim under the sherman act or clayton act alleging some sort of exclusionary boycott or "refusal to deal." But the antitrust claim has major problems:

(A) Apple is probably not a monopoly in the mobile phone market. Unless Adobe can show that Apple has a monopoly in the relevant market, they will get absolutely nowhere.

(B) Apple isn't making agreements with competitors to boycott Adobe. They just aren't using it themselves.

A distinction between single-firm and multi-firm conduct is fundamental to the structure of U.S. antitrust law, which, as noted antitrust scholar Phillip Areeda has pointed out, "contains a 'basic distinction between concerted and independent action.'"

I want to build iPhone applications, but I can't because I don't own a Mac. I must go spend $1200 (roughly) to buy a Mac before I can develop an application for the iPhone. That is not fair for a small developer

That's called investing.Or are you currently developing on a machine that in some magical way was totally free (as in beer)?

I bet you don't. You coughed up a few hundred bucks at least for some hardware and then you needed a OS and development tools. If you're not running a *nix/*lux variant chances are you had to pay for those as well. Same thing, spend cash to earn cash.

It's not fair for my place of employment since I work for a state agency and we are mandated by state to purchase all computers from a specific vendor. Because of this, we can not develop an iPhone app

You're blaming Apple for the fact that your employer refuses (or is not allowed) to buy from Apple.. You have a strange way of thinking I

The short version: Apple is telling developers that they can't buy Adobe *tools* to produce *native* Apple-platform applications.

The long version:

1. Adobe Flash is buggy and crashes a lot. Steve Jobs also seems to have a personal beef with it for some reason.2. Apple says, "No flash on our iAnything platforms."3. Adobe says, "Please?"4. Apple says, "No!"5. Adobe says, "Okay, we've made a compiler that takes a Flash script and compiles it to an iAnything native application, using HTML 5, Apple's C-variant, and Apple's API."6. Apple says, "We've added a clause to our developer contract that says that developers are not allowed to use anything that translates code from one language to another for the iAnything platform. You have to use OUR tools, and you must write in OUR language from the start, or you - the developer - cannot play with us."7. Adobe says, "..."

What exactly are they going to sue them for? Is there a law that says a company has to allow another company's product to interact with theirs? I mean, sure, its generally considered good form to do so, but its hardly required. Of course, rising popularity of iPhone/iPod Touch/possibly the iPad as well, none of which run Flash, means that there will be less demand to use Flash, and therefore Adobe will be able to sell fewer Flash dev kits. Well, frankly, too bad. Adobe makes some good stuff, and is probably largely responsible for the success of the Mac, but as Apple moves more towards the mobile space, they don't really need Adobe as much as they used to anymore. But, as Apple continues to push the market space away from the desktop, Adobe may need Apple more than ever.

I rtfa, (crazy, I know) and don't understand on what grounds the suing will occur. I understand why Adobe is pissed off, but is Apple really in an actionable position? They own the SDK, the hardware, everything, they can do whatever the fuck they want. While this might not make them popular and people might not buy their shit, how is it that Adobe can sue them because Apple said they couldn't come over and play in the walled garden?

Granted, ianal (but neither is Jack Thompson!) but I am just totally baffled as to what grounds the alleged suit is being brought on.

Apple is telling developers that they aren't free to choose the tools they use. Specifically you can't use a tool that would allow you to write code once and run it on any platform. Who cares about Adobe, Apple is telling *you* to take it up the ass and like it.

After having to mess with J2ME, Qtopia, Symbian, and all the other idiots who basically put the iPhone where it is today, I find being forced to use XCode and Objective-C instead of other tools akin to being being forced to only fuck supermodels instead of lunch ladies.

Use our product! On your product! Without paying us! Or we'll sue you!

What next? Microsoft suing a suddenly popular PC manufacturer because they've completely abandoned Windows and only ship with Ubuntu Linux, or an "advanced" option out of a list of free OSes including Fedora, CentOS, Debian, FreeBSD?

They have a platform worth billions. Tens of billions. They have chosen to make it closed. You as a consumer can chose to use there platform or not, that is up to you. For them, to potentially put the fate of a multi-billion dollar product in the potential hands of a company that makes development content for this multi-billion dollar platform and not control it is suicide.

You can argue the merits of closed or open but in this case the point is moot. iPhone is closed and Apple wants it that way. They are not going to put their fate in the hands of Adobe. The only legs Adobe may have to stand on is if they were lead to believe that their platform was to be accepted (written contract or verbal) and then at the 11th hour to be shafted? Well then maybe they have a case.

Hey, I was the engineering dept. manager back at VLSI Tech back when chip sets was a good business. Intel decided, rightly so, that they could not put the fate of their CPU's in the hands of 3rd party chip set vendors. In ONE product cycle (after they finally figured out how to make them) they took 90% of the PC market with their chip sets. Did it hurt? Yea, it hurt. We went from $250M/yr to $25M/yr in 12 months. I lost my job along with a host of others. That being said, I still can't fault Intel for what they did. Quite frankly I'm surprised it took them as long as it did. The case in point with Apple and Adobe is no different.

Flash is cool. I too have played some great flash games. But when my system goes from idle to 100% and all I did was open a web page with a flash based add, something is wrong. Why does something that takes up no more than a tenth of the web page cause my system to go to 100% cpu?

Everyone thinks Apple is the big bad wolf here. The reality is, Adobe has every opportunity to port flash and make it an outstanding piece of software. Instead they want to settle for good enough. Good enough is what has given us software that works, but requires ever increasing amounts of processor power, memory and disk space just to run at an acceptable level.

Processor, memory and more importantly battery life, are not unlimited in a mobile device. Apple is the gatekeeper so yes it does appear that they are the bad guys, but the reality is that Adobe has had every opportunity to make Flash better. Make it use less CPU, less memory and make it world class software. Instead, they've chosen to whine and complain about it.

Did Opera whine and complain about Apple's rules and how it was going to hurt them? Or did they innovate?

Adobe has every opportunity to make Flash function so well that Apple would have no problem letting it exist on the iProducts. Apple has provided the tools to write code for the iPlatforms. Adobe has access to those tools just like everyone else. The only thing stopping Adobe is Adobe. Apple has no further responsibility to make some other companies product work.

I'm not being mindlessly dismissive here, but what does Adobe seek to gain here? To sway the hearts and minds of a handful of pundits while Steve Jobs rolls out products that make HTML5 development attractive?

This part is redundant, but needs to be asked, why is Adobe not fixing flash? Is it cheaper to litigate and wage a PR war than it is to fix the damn browser plugin and development tools?

How the hell can one company require another company to use their products? Apple wants only things written in a certain language, and that can't be used to re-execute additional code, etc etc, to be installed. Have we already forgotten/Launch from pdfs, a week later? And flash itself allows additional, non-Apple-approved, code to be run. That's the point...whether or not you or I like the policy, it's not as though Adobe is being singled out. They just feel like they are because they have such crap products that are near-monopolies themselves.

"How can you shut us out!!! We would have had our monopoly locked down if not for you...and now people are all abuzz about html5 instead! You bastards!" Yeah, I don't see how that's a legally binding thing. Ford can decide that they won't install Pioneer radios in their cars...what legal grounds would Pioneer have to suing them in to forcing them to use their product? Especially if Pioneer radios somehow broke a policy that Ford has (such as - no apps that can be used to write new apps that can be run).

My first though (after a brief "Sue them for what?") is that perhaps Apple should attempt a take over of Adobe. Adobe has plenty of good pro apps that would go great along side Apples pro apps.

But then I think back to what I know from having worked with Adobe. Its a highly bloated organization, not run in a very efficient manner. Their authoring tools are great, but a lot of what made them a great company doesn't seem to be there anymore. The project that I worked on with them was very poorly conceived, poorly executed and was already on its third or fourth iteration (none of them ever went anywhere beyond the pilot program I worked on).

For Apple, buying adobe could be too much of a drag, they would want them to be a subsidiary but the changes they would have to make to streamline to corporation could be more than Apple would want to bite off.

Adobe is a large company with a significant, and complicated, relationship with Apple. They have frequent high level contacts and meetings. Adobe has known for quite some time about Apple's desire not to have Flash on the iPhone. There is no doubt in my mind that if they asked Apple to bless this they were rebuffed, and if they didn't ask the only reason they didn't was because they knew Apple would say no. In either event, they announced the product to their customers and sold them on an idea they were not in a position to deliver, hoping Apple would be unwilling to piss off developers by not fulfilling Adobe's promises. They tried to force Apple's hand by putting Apple in a position where in order stop the Flash they would have to do it publicly in front of Adobe's users. That was a bad call on Adobe's part.

It's very good, except that it's wrong. Apple did know about the iPhone packager, of course (there are approved apps in the AppStroe built with the prerelease versions of it, and Adobe has been bragging about it for a while) - and they did nothing to hint they would prevent it, up till the very last second.(banning "interpreted code" does not count, the iPhone packager did not create interpreted code)

Apple is perfectly within their rights to not allow programs that will then run arbitrary code on their devices. No court would uphold this and im sure Apples lawyers have already done a preliminary job of putting together a case if this were to happen.

IANAL but it seems pretty airtight that Apple can decide arbitrarily what to run -on their own devices- especially when there are literally millions of phones/platforms that will let you do anything. Did Adobe really think Flash was going to be on top forever

What about the other frameworks that Apples ruling has affected, such as MonoTouch? Before this ruling, it was easy for a.Net house to cater to a customers requirements for a related iPhone app - now, they have to either become experienced in another language or outsource the work.

And to be honest, I have never seen a complaint about one of our iPhone apps written in MonoTouch (and we have several complex ones) - people cannot notice the difference between one and a native app.

Although I'm not going to argue that flash is extremely stable, I think this is much more about platform lock-in than any particular defect in Flash.

Apple didn't ban Flash, they banned anything that wasn't written specifically for their platform.

Adobe could release an absolutely amazing and flawless version of Flash 11 tomorrow and it would be just as banned, if not even more zealously, because it would represent a stronger competitor to Apple's own platform.

I wouldn't call it sabotage, just incompetence. Apple's been telling them to fix it for quite a few years, but it seems that they can't be bothered to learn the rudiments of how to write threaded code.

I wouldn't call it sabotage, just incompetence. Apple's been telling them to fix it for quite a few years, but it seems that they can't be bothered to learn the rudiments of how to write threaded code.

-jcr

But if it works on Linux and Windows, on the exact same hardware, how is this entirely Adobe's problem?

I suspect that this isn't about supporting Flash as much as it is about Apple's not allowing linker-level Flash ports. There are good reasons to not allow Flash on the iDevices, it's much harder to make the case for Flash apps that have been converted to stand alone applications.

Agreed. And, to be blunt, I'm sick and tired of flash all over my Internet. Flash cookies are a HORRIBLE idea. Menus on websites that are flash driven are ridiculous. And to be blunt, the vast majority of flash on the sites I frequent are the ads anyway. Especially when I'm on a low-bandwidth connection, why the hell do I want flash anyway?

I know, I know, without flash I can't watch a movie on the Internet anymore. So let's adopt HTML 5 standards and get on with it.

Not to mention telling Apple "No, we're not going to port Photoshop to Yellow box (even though it's based on our Display Postscript technology)". It was a nasty one-two punch that could have put Apple out of business.

*Sigh* So when you bought your iPod Touch did it not say Windows PC or Mac OS X only right? It was fairly clear on my box that there was no Linux support.

Apple basically sets their stuff up so that if you buy 1 piece of Apple equipment you're going Apple all the way or the whole thing will break. There's no TECHNICAL reason for that situation, and the artificial creation of such a situation should be regulated IMHO.

No there's no technical reason. Just practical ones. Apple doesn't want to support Linux. Many companies don't. That's their choice. You changing your OS is not the responsibility of Apple.